Natural Living Monday #13

Good Monday Morning! Are you looking for gifts for a special child in your life to give during the upcoming holiday season?  Something homemade that inspires the imagination?  Something that gives kids hands on experience with herbs?

Play dough, need I say more?  

Maybe it is just me and my obsession with the stuff.  I do seem to talk about it a lot and make it often.  But in my opinion, play dough is really one of the best homemade gifts for little kids.  By adding herbs and essential oils to play dough kids get to experience herbs in an up close and personal way.  I find that they absolutely love it!  I smile every year when I make up a big batch of Christmas play dough to send off in the mail to all the sweet young ones in my life and of course I always make extra for my own kids to play with, though this year they seem less interested.  So sad, I guess they are growing up!

Last night we made up a special batch to send off.  We used lots of fun things to make it smell and sparkle like the Holidays.

Things Like....

• ground cinnamon, copious amounts
• ground cloves
• beet root powder  for color
• pink rose petals
• orange essential oil
• lots of different colors of glitter (this part is not so environmental... ah well...)

Once it was all cooked up and had cooled off we portioned it into plastic bags to keep it fresh and then wrapped it with sparkly tissue paper.  This will make a fun addition to gifts we send off in the mail!  Check out my post on Herbal Play Dough for the recipe to make your own play dough.

More Please!

The following links have great variations on play dough...

Cinnamon Day

Rose At Preschool for Valentine's Day

A Happy First Day of Preschool With Calming Aromatherapy

Herbal Play Dough

And now....

Welcome to Natural Living Monday here we share all our natural living tips, tricks, and fun ideas.

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Thank you for joining us on Natural Living Monday! I am excited to see the great things you have been doing to live a more natural, whole, holistic life.

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Ditch the disposables: How to stop using paper towels by Green Idea Reviews

Cuddle Babies Too Much by Slightly Steady

Herbal Medicine Chest #1 by The Woodwife's Journal

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Longmont Pumpkin Patches in Review

Every year we go to at least one pumpkin patch.  There are so very many to choose from here on the Front Range and they are  each unique.  Happily this year we made it to two!

Sunflower Farms

This place is like a gem.  So sweet and very country, almost romantic in its appeal.  At least for me.

Huge tree houses greet you has you walk into the farm with all kinds of swings hanging on the surrounding tree branches.  These are some big trees and the swings go high!

The hay bale maze here is built-up at different levels with wooden planks for walking over gaps.

There is a great long zip line.  The animals on this farm are friendly and some of them roam free.  We had a couple of turkeys gobbling at us by the camp fire when we first arrived.

Kids can play in a big enclosure filled with corn like a sandbox and feed the corn to the goats.  The goats are funny and very gentle at least with us humans, there was some serious competition for corn.

We also took a horse-drawn carriage ride to the Enchanted Forest where the kids played among trees and picked a pumpkin from the nearby field.

I love how natural and old fashion Sunflower Farms is.  How it is set up for pure imaginative fun!

Anderson Farms

This place has a HUGE corn maze.  We went early in the morning and the breeze through the corn was rustling like a forest on a mountain side.  Actually we went to this maze twice this year and were able to complete the maze during our two visits.  There are sign posts or markers throughout the maze where you can punch your map to show that you made it through.  The kids had a lot of fun figuring out how to get from one section of the maze to another.  There is also a who-done-it mystery to solve in the corn maze that is very kid friendly and kept them going strong.

Anderson Farms  also has barrel and tractor rides.  A tire castle to climb and a super fun hay bale maze for the kids to jump around on.   We didn't see it all, we focused on the maze.  So I know there is more at this pumpkin patch, maybe for next year.

Anderson Farms  also has barrel and tractor rides.  A tire castle to climb and a super fun hay bale maze for the kids to jump around on.   We didn't see it all, we focused on the maze.  So I know there is more at this pumpkin patch, maybe for next year.

Rocky Mtn. Pumpkin Ranch

This is our old stomping grounds.  We have gone here for years and just recently branched out.  I am planning to sneak over there by myself one day to score some of there wonderful organic produce.

The fun here involves bouncy houses and carnival rides, face painting as well as pumpkin painting.  The kids were sad we didn't go here this year, maybe next time....

Please Note:  As of Fall 2012, it looks like Rocky Mtn. Pumpkin Ranch has changed some things around since last time we went.  Still  fun things going on, but maybe no carnival rides?  And it looks a bit less expensive which is something to cheer about!